• Te Araroa Day 58
• Whakapapa to National Park – 22.48km in 6 hours 40 minutes

I hadn’t realised last night that a herd of elephants were staying in the room next to me, but at 6am this morning I was certainly aware of it! I’ve never heard a family (?) make so much noise in shared accommodation as they presumably left early to do the Crossing! Despite a patchy sleep I did feel a whole lot better this morning, and felt like I should just set out on trail as planned without worrying about Jamie possibly popping up.

It was also exciting to see blue sky out the window – I might finally get some good views and figure out which mountain was Ruapehu! I said goodbye to my friends from Kaiapoi, and they wished me well – along with the mum whispering to me to make sure I always slept in my clothes in my tent so I could run away from anything. Yea, pretty much my modus operandi already.. The only problem was after putting on my shoes, I realised my hiking poles were nowhere to be seen. I’d obviously misplaced them in yesterday’s check in panic. Luckily the lovely staff were looking after them in the office. I can’t speak highly enough of Whakapapa Holiday Park – they were so kind and caring.

I hurried along the footpath to a nearby carpark where the first of today’s trails seemed to begin, took a deep breath, and tried not to head off down the wrong trail. The Lower Silica Rapids Track was a lovely soft trail and connected to the similar Whakapapaiti Valley Track. They were both well maintained which I knew wouldn’t last, but I certainly enjoyed it while I could!

After just over an hour of walking through the forest, the trail came out in the open and I finally saw those mountains and some awesome views:

I now very much had a grin on my face and was stoked to be hiking through another stunningly beautiful part of the North Island, not looking behind me worrying about stalkers. I stopped for lunch and enjoyed the sun, before crossing a bridge which was a memorial to a young woman who’d drowned crossing a nearby river on an outing with her tramping club. She was the same age as me.

Just across the bridge was the junction where Te Araroa turns onto the Mangahuia Track. I say track, but really it was difficult to tell if it was a small creek, or a trail…

There was the occasional dry part but somehow even the parts back in the forest often seemed to have a good inch or three of water sitting on top. Crossing the Mangahuia Stream was a river crossing and ice bath for my legs all in one.

Somewhere after this came the point in the afternoon where I just really wanted to hurry up and get to my destination. I popped my earphones in and continued on with the audiobook which had become quite gripping, hoping it would fast forward me to the end of this track where there was a toilet.

Thwack, crack!

What the…. Both poles, my hat and sunglasses lay strewn on the track in all directions. Somebody had smashed me in the head. I looked around dazedly, heart racing. There was no one there, and I realized that I had walked smack bang (literally) into a very solid low hanging tree branch that was right at my forehead height. I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t even take a photo. What kind of muppet does that??! How on earth had I not seen that branch? Was it my cap visor? Did listening to an audiobook ruin my sixth sense of how to avoid obstructions on the trail? Maybe it was both of these, combined with the fact there was so much water on the trail I’d spent a lot of time looking down to pick my way through it. My head hurt a bit, and the impact had snapped my ‘adventure-proof’ sunglasses which had been sitting on top of my cap.

I ploughed on more carefully, constantly on the lookout for trees but seemingly that was the only one. Finally the end of the track appeared, and I had a break to prepare for the road walk into National Park. It was 6 kilometres on state highway 47 of hoping Jamie didn’t jump out of a vehicle passing by. There wasn’t that much traffic though, sometimes the verge was pretty good, other times I seemed to be weaving in and out of harakeke plants and the ditch. Unlike yesterday, I could see my destination – a tiny pin prick in this photo, but it’s there!

Turns out it felt like forever walking down this road with the pinprick slowly growing bigger. Sometime after 4pm I made it, and attempted to celebrate by buying tasty snacks in the shop. My fried brain (or hit head?) struggled to choose anything, and it took forever. The backpackers was ok but cold and I sat on my saggy bed munching in a bit of a daze, gutted about my sunglasses and wondering if their lifetime guarantee was for real.